Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008 33

Design of Wideband Filter Using Split-ring Resonator DGS

Zheng-Zheng Hou, Xing-Xing Li, and Chao-Kun Hao
College of Information and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University
Hangzhou 310018, China

Abstract— The split-ring resonator defected ground structure (SRR DGS) is applied to the
wideband filter design in the paper. A micro-strip band-pass filter with a transmission zero at
right out-of-band are designed using the equivalent-circuit analysis and curve-fitting method,
which is then realized in the actual compact structure, making use of lumped chip capacitors
and T-shaped open-circuit stub to achieve series and shunt capacitance, respectively. A band-
pass filter with a wide pass-band from 1 GHz to 2.4 GHz is fabricated and measured, and the
experimental results have a good agreement with the simulation results.

1. INTRODUCTION
Defected ground structure was firstly proposed by Park et al. based on the idea of photonic band-
gap (PBG) structure [1] in 1999, and had found its application in the design of planar circuits and
low-pass filters [2, 3]. Defected ground structure is realized by etching a defective pattern in the
ground plane of the micro-strip line, which disturbs the shield current distribution in the ground
plane, then change the characteristics of a transmission line such as equivalent capacitance and
inductance to obtain the slow-wave effect and band-stop property. Compared with the conventional
PBG structures, defected ground structure requires only one defected unit to obtain the forbidden-
gap property, and the center frequency of the gap is fully determined by the configuration of the
defected unit, so it has the advantages of small size, compact structure as well as the facility of
equivalent-circuit analysis and filter design [4–6].
Split-ring resonator DGS is becoming one of the most popular DGS types in recent years [7, 8],
which introduces a transmission zero at the out-of-band, so it has a much steeper slope for the
filter design. In this paper, the split-ring resonator DGS is successfully applied to the design of
micro-strip band-pass filter. First, the equivalent-circuit values are extracted by the curve-fitting
method; second, a novel wideband filter circuit model is constructed and analyzed; the filter is
then realized by using lumped chip capacitances and T-shaped open-circuit stubs and fabricated.
Measured pass-band loss is below 1 dB with a wide pass-band from 1 GHz to 2.4 GHz, and from
3 GHz to 8 GHz, the out-band suppression is no less than 25 dB.
2. ANALYSIS OF SPLIT-RING RESONATOR DGS CELL
The SRR DGS is obtained by etching two concentric split-ring defective patterns which have dif-
ferent size and inverse split direction in the ground plane, due to the discontinuity of impedance
in defective region, an electromagnetic resonance is obtained and thus a band-gap is formed. As
shown in Fig. 1(a), the permittivity of the micro-strip line is εr = 2.65, the height of the dielectric
board is h = 1.5 mm, and width of the conductor line is 4 mm.

L2 L2

C2

L1 C1

(a) (b)
Figure 1: (a) Structure of the SRR DGS cell, (b) Equivalent-circuit of the SRR DGS cell.
34 PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

Generally speaking, the split-ring resonator forms a parallel resonator, so etching split-ring
defective pattern in the ground plane will add a parallel resonator to the equivalent right-hand
transmission line which is composed of two serial inductors and a shunt capacitor. In addition, the
parallel tank L1 -C1 has a capacitive coupling with the conductor line, so the whole equivalent-circuit
is achieved as shown in Fig. 1(b). When a = 10 mm, g = 1 mm, t = 1 mm and c = 2 mm, by using
the curve-fitting and parameter extraction technology, the corresponding equivalent-circuit values
of the SRR DGS can be determined as follows: L1 = 3.300 nH, C1 = 0.430 pF, L2 = 2.818 nH,
C2 = 0.652 pF, Fig. 2 shows the comparison of two different simulation results.

a=10 mm
g=1 mm
c=2 mm S21
S parameters (dB)

L1=3.300 nH
C1=0.430 pF
L2=2.818 nH
C2=0.652 pF

S11 Circuit simulation

HFSS simulation

Frequency (GHz)
Figure 2: Simulation results of the SRR DGS cell.

3. CIRCUIT MODEL OF SRR DGS BAND-PASS FILTER

In order to apply the SRR DGS to the band-pass filter design, series capacitors are used to realize
external coupling and shunt capacitors are introduced to improve the out-of-band suppression.
Firstly, we construct a two-stage topology of band-pass filter as shown in Fig. 3, and make an
analysis of this circuit model. The transmission zero location of the circuit is determined by the
resonant frequency of the shunt circuit, that means it is codetermined by L1 , C1 and C2 , and the
resonant frequency is
1
fs = p (1)
2π L1 (C1 + C2 )

The frequency response of the circuit model is depicted in Fig. 4, which shows a wide pass-band
property. With the optimized circuit values, the filter has a center frequency of 1.7 GHz and a wide
relative bandwidth of 0.9. Furthermore, it also has a transmission zero at the right-hand side of
the main pass-band, which forms a asymmetry frequency response of wide pass-band filter, so a

0
L1=3.300 nH
C1=0 .430 pF
-10
L2=2.818 nH
S parameters (dB)

SC L2 L2 L2 L2 SC . 52 pF
C2=0 6
-20
C3=0. 823 pF
-30 C4=2.47 pF
C2 C2 SC=5.6 pF
-40
C3 C4 C3
L1 C1 L1 C1 -50
S21
-60 S11

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frequency (GHz)
Figure 3: Circuit model of the SRR DGS band-pass Figure 4: Frequency response of the circuit model
filter. for the band-pass filter.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008 35

sharp slop and high suppression are obtained at the band-edge. Within a wide frequency range
from 3 GHz to 8 GHz, the out-of-band suppression is no less than 25 dB.
4. STRUCTURE AND MEASUREMENT RESULTS
In this paper, we make use of lumped chip capacitor to realize series capacitance of SC=5.6 pF, and
T-shaped open-circuit stub to achieve the large shunt capacitance C3 and C4 , then we can get the
corresponding structure model of the pass-band filter as shown in Fig. 5. The size of SRR DGS is
the same as the above section, and other parameters are: w1 = 3 mm, w2 = 4 mm and L = 7 mm.
Chip capatitor Open- circuit stub

SRR DGS
Figure 5: Structure of the proposed SRR DGS band-pass filter.

Figure 6: Photographs of the fabricated SRR DGS wideband filter.

To verify the filtering property of this structure, the SRR DGS band-pass filter is fabricated
as illustrated in Fig. 6, which is composed of Teflon substrate with thickness h = 1.5 mm and
dielectric constant εr = 2.65, the conductor line has a width of 4 mm. The measured result shows
a low pass-band loss of no more than 1 dB within wide pass-band from 1 GHz to 2.4 GHz, and the
out-of-band suppression is no less than 25 dB until almost 7.5 GHz, which shows a good agreement
with the simulation results by EM simulator Ansoft HFSS software (Fig. 7).

-10
SC=5.6 pF
S parameter (dB)

-20

-30

-40

-50 Simulation
-60 Measurement

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frequency (GHz)
Figure 7: Comparison between EM simulation result and measurement result.

5. CONCLUSIONS
The split-ring resonator DGS founds its application in the design of micro-strip band-pass filter in
this paper. A novel circuit model of band-pass filter with a transmission zero is proposed on the
36 PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

basis of the analysis of SRR DGS cell. Then the chip capacitors and T-shaped open-circuit stubs
are used to realize series and shunt capacitance, respectively. Finally, a wideband filter with low
insertion loss of 1 dB and wide rejection band until 7.5 GHz is fabricated and measured. Other kinds
of SRR DGS band-pass filter can be achieved by replacing the lumped capacitor by interdigital
capacitor or series gap, and considering the SRR DGS as an independent resonant unit, which can
be applied to the miniaturized microwave integrated circuit design.
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